


Intermediate Chaos Theory

by kbaycolt



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Character Analysis, Episode: s03e04 Remedial Chaos Theory, Gen, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbaycolt/pseuds/kbaycolt
Summary: An episode and character analysis of s03e04 of the sitcom Community, "Remedial Chaos Theory".
Relationships: & Pierce Hawthorne, Troy Barnes & Shirley Bennett & Annie Edison & Abed Nadir & Britta Perry & Jeff Winger
Kudos: 7





	Intermediate Chaos Theory

The episode “Remedial Chaos Theory”, from the sitcom Community, which aired on October 13, 2011, is the fourth episode of season three, and was received warmly and with high praise from Community’s small but loyal fanbase. It was an experimental episode that Community’s writers were concerned wouldn’t land as intended, but the episode ended up being a rousing success among fans.

On paper, “Remedial Chaos Theory” doesn’t seem like an altogether impressive episode. It’s the study group attending Troy and Abed’s housewarming party, and the entire episode is nothing but exploring six different timelines where each member of the group goes to fetch the pizza from downstairs. After a while, one might suspect that watching the same scenario play out over and over again, with minor changes, would get boring - this would be incorrect. Due to the expert way the episode is executed, every timeline ends up being a remarkably in-depth analysis of each character, what they contribute to the group dynamic, and how their absence would impact the other characters.

The episode opens with, as mentioned earlier, Troy and Abed welcoming the other members of the group to their housewarming party, after announcing their decision to live together in “Biology 101”. When the pizza arrives, Abed explains that they are unable to buzz up the pizza delivery person, and one of the study group must go down to let them in. Everyone promptly tries to avoid being the one to do this.

To solve the issue, Jeff decides to roll a dice to decide which person will go down. As he does so, Abed warns, “Just so you know. Jeff, you are now creating six different timelines;” a warning which Jeff does not heed.

The rest of the episode goes through each timeline, which will be discussed below in a moment.

Now, an important part of this episode is its incredible and masterful use of Chekhov’s gun. In essence, Chekhov’s gun is a story principle which dictates that every piece of information that is introduced, or has attention drawn to it, must later be relevant in some form. This episode has a total of 9 Chekhov’s guns: Abed’s model replica of the rolling boulder scene from  _ Raiders of the Lost Ark _ , Shirley baking pies, Pierce’s housewarming gift, his Serbian rum, and his Eartha Kitt story, Annie’s purse and her background in hospital administration, Britta’s drug habit, and lastly her attempts to sing “Roxanne” by The Police.

Back to the timelines. The first timeline shown is where Jeff rolls a two; which means Annie is the one to get the pizza. Britta puts on “Roxanne” as Annie gets up and says, “I guess I’m going down.” Pierce uses this as an opening to make a lewd comment about having sex with Eartha Kitt in an airplane bathroom, which prompts Shirley to leave the table and check on her pies in the oven. Britta attempts to sing the first lines of the song, but Jeff harshly shuts her down. Offended, she storms off to the bathroom, followed by Abed. At the table, Troy notices Annie’s purse is slightly open; reaching inside, they discover that she has been carrying around a gun in her purse, which alarms everyone. Pierce offers Troy his housewarming gift, but Troy is too concerned about Annie possessing a gun to open it.

Jeff stands up, hitting his head on the ceiling fan. It should be noted here for brevity’s sake that Jeff hits his head on the fan in every timeline.

Shirley comes back to the table with her pies; everyone refuses to eat them, much to her disappointment. When Britta comes out of the bathroom, Abed mentions that it smells weird, which Britta gets defensive over. Annie comes up with the pizza, remarking that the pizza guy looked super creepy.

The timeline ends. Here, several important things are revealed: Annie has a gun in her purse, everyone is refusing to eat Shirley’s pies, and there’s a weird smell in the bathroom.

In the next timeline, Jeff rolls a four - this time, Shirley has to get the pizza. She reminds everyone to not let her pies burn. Once she’s gone, something new is revealed: the group has made pact to not enable Shirley’s baking, because she, in Jeff’s words, “has a baking problem”. This explains why Jeff, Troy, and Pierce all refused to eat her pies in the previous timeline. Britta, again, attempts to sing “Roxanne”, Jeff shuts her down, and she goes to the bathroom. Pierce makes the Eartha Kitt comment, to everyone’s disgust. Met with negative reactions, Pierce then gives Troy his housewarming present; here we discover that it is a traditional Norwegian troll doll, which used to terrify Troy when he lived with Pierce. Jeff stands up and hits his head on the fan, and Annie takes him aside to look at it in the bathroom, in case there’s a need for first aid.

Shirley returns with the pizza, cheerfully asking if the group remembered to take her pies out of the oven. When it becomes clear that no one has, she rushes off to fetch them, only to find they’ve been burned to a crisp. Here it is revealed that Shirley feels excluded sometimes, for being the only married woman in a group of younger people who have had multiple romantic entanglements with one another. Upset, she flees the apartment, slamming the door behind her. The force of the door slamming rattles Abed’s model, and he quickly catches the boulder before it tumbles to the ground.

The timeline ends. To recap, in this timeline, we now understand the situation with Shirley’s pies, Pierce’s housewarming gift, and Annie’s background in hospital administration. Abed’s rolling boulder has also had attention drawn to it; when someone slams the door too hard, it knocks loose, and needs to be caught or else it will fall.

In the next timeline, Jeff rolls a three, meaning Pierce has to get the pizza. He manages to fit in the Eartha Kitt comment before he leaves, disgusting everyone. When Jeff and Annie share a small laugh with each other across the table, Shirley scoffs and goes to check on her pies. Britta attempts to sing “Roxanne”, Jeff shuts her down, and she goes to the bathroom. When Jeff, Annie, and Troy are alone at the table, Jeff cracks a joke about Troy being childish, which makes Troy leave and storm off to the bathroom. He bangs into the  _ Raiders _ model, knocking loose the boulder, which Abed scoops up.

Here, we discover that Britta has been smoking a cigarette in the bathroom every time she’s gone in there, explaining the weird smell that Abed noticed. Troy goes into the bathroom, where he confesses to Britta that he feels like Jeff is always picking on him for being younger and less mature. Britta and Troy share a nice moment together where Britta validates his unique expression of masculinity and assures him that everyone respects him as an adult in his own right.

In the kitchen, Annie is checking Jeff’s head for any scrapes, since Britta and Troy are occupying the bathroom. Shirley offers them pies; Jeff harshly declines. Pierce returns with the pizza, commenting that pizza guys are looking worse and worse these days.

Timeline ends. This timeline is, arguably, one of the brightest so far. It highlights Troy’s underlying insecurity of not being masculine in the correct way, and not being respected as an adult and a man, and is also the first time someone has done anything to ease his anxieties about it. It also lays firmer groundwork for the Troy/Britta romance arc in later episodes, as well as showcasing how Pierce’s absence removes a good amount of negative stress on the group as a whole.

In the next timeline, Jeff rolls a six, meaning it’s Britta’s turn to get the pizza. She doesn’t get a chance to turn on Roxanne, so Jeff doesn’t shut her down. Pierce makes the Eartha Kitt comment; Shirley goes to check on her pies. This time, since no one is in the bathroom, Annie is able to check Jeff’s head wound in there, which leaves Troy, Abed, and Pierce alone at the table. As Troy and Abed begin to chat easily with each other, Pierce becomes visibly jealous of their friendship and gives Troy the housewarming gift.

In the bathroom, Jeff remarks that Annie is a good nurse; she responds by saying she’s had to apply a tourniquet before, for a man who was stabbed outside of her building. Jeff insists that she needs to move out of her apartment due to safety concerns. Right as Jeff and Annie share a moment where it almost seems as though they’re about to kiss, Troy begins to scream outside, and they rush to see what the problem is.

Pierce is in the middle of threatening a terrified Troy with the troll. Abed explains that Pierce is jealous because Troy chose to live with Abed instead of him. Pierce yells that Abed is just lonely and crazy; the apartment goes quiet as Pierce realizes he actually means himself, and not Abed.

Britta returns with the pizza, and also the pizza guy, whom she is holding hands with. She announces that they’re in love and getting married.

Timeline ends. This timeline reveals why Pierce has chosen to torment Troy; he’s jealous of Abed, lonely, and going crazy with his semi-self-imposed isolation. It also explains why Annie was carrying a gun in her purse: she lives in an awful neighborhood where stabbings are common. Less relevantly, this timeline highlights Britta’s terrible taste in men.

The next timeline is the most eventful and most important one. This is the timeline where every hint and detail planted throughout the episode comes to fruition; in other words, every Chekhov’s gun fires all at once.

Jeff rolls a one, meaning Troy has to get the pizza. Troy announces that he’s going as quickly as possible, so he doesn’t miss anything. He rushes off, slamming the door behind him; the force of it knocks down Abed’s boulder, and with no one to catch it, it hits the floor.

Britta attempts to sing “Roxanne”, Jeff cuts her off, she goes to the bathroom accompanied by Abed. Pierce makes the Eartha Kitt comment. Shirley goes to check on her pies. Jeff hits his head, and when Annie suggests checking it in the bathroom, Troy and Abed aren’t there to remind her that Britta is in there; she turns to take a step, trips on the boulder, and falls, landing hard on the snack table where Pierce had earlier placed his bottle of Serbian rum. Everything on the table is launched into the air, including the rum. The bottle shatters on the ground, spilling alcohol everywhere. Annie’s purse flies out of her hands.

Pierce leaps to his feet, accidentally kicking his housewarming gift. When it hits the floor, the lid comes off, leaving the troll doll exposed in the center of the room. Annie’s purse hits the floor, jostling the gun - it misfires and hits Pierce in the leg. He collapses with a cry of pain. Annie rushes to stem the bleeding with Abed’s help while Jeff calls 911. Alarmed by the noise outside, Britta runs out of the bathroom with the lit cigarette still in her mouth; she is so shocked by the events unfolding that the cigarette falls from her lips and lands in the rum, instantly igniting it.

Jeff grabs a curtain to try and put out the flames while Britta throws water on it. Troy returns with the pizza, only to stop short upon seeing the chaos that has unfolded inside the apartment; at last, his gaze lands on the troll doll in the middle of the room, which has caught fire and begun to melt terrifyingly. It seems as though he has made the connection in his mind that the troll, which has haunted his nightmares, is responsible for all of this. Troy drops the pizza in horror and starts to scream.

Timeline ends.

So, there’s a lot to unpack in this timeline. It is possible and valid to interpret this as a metaphor for Troy’s role; he is thought of as the heart of the group, who holds everyone together, and in his absence everything falls apart ridiculously quickly.

This is also the most satisfying timeline, as it delivers what the audience has been waiting for since the beginning: payoff. Every single Checkhov’s gun that hasn’t been relevant yet fires in this timeline. Abed’s boulder, Pierce’s rum, Annie’s gun, and Britta’s smoking habit. A perfect storm of coincidences and small hints that, when aligned in the most - or least - opportune manner, create a domino effect of increasingly horrible disasters striking one after another in rapid succession. This timeline, as revealed in the credits scene, is known as the Darkest Timeline, and rightfully so - it’s the one where Troy leaves.

Which brings us to the next and final timeline. Though a bit underwhelming in comparison to the chaos of the Darkest Timeline, it still provides smaller payoff for less blatantly important hints peppered throughout the other timelines.

In this timeline, Jeff rolls a five, meaning Abed has to get the pizza. Pierce makes the Eartha Kitt comment, Jeff stops Britta from singing, Shirley goes to check on her pies. This time, it’s Troy who tells Britta where the bathroom is, though he doesn’t go with her to show her. She ends up smoking her cigarette alone, uninterrupted.

When Britta comes out of the bathroom, she remarks how good Shirley’s pies smell, which prompts Shirley to excitedly bring her one. Britta takes a bite, but quickly realizes her mistake upon remembering the group’s pact to not enable Shirley’s baking. She confesses the pact to Shirley as well as the fact that she’s high right now. Meanwhile, Troy and Pierce are alone at the table, while Annie checks Jeff’s head in the kitchen. Pierce gives Troy the housewarming gift. Before opening it, Troy tells Pierce how grateful he is for being able to live with Pierce, but that he needs to become his own man by himself, just like Pierce did.

Struck with sudden guilt over his initial plans to traumatize Troy, Pierce attempts to take the gift back - meanwhile, Shirley and Britta’s argument has escalated to cruel insults as Shirley calls Britta a “godless hippie skank”, and Britta retorts that Shirley uses her baking as a means to earn love from others. In the kitchen, Jeff and Annie are kissing, but Annie ruins the moment by mentioning how much Jeff reminds her of her father.

When the tug-of-war between Troy and Pierce causes the lid to rip off and the troll to come tumbling out, Troy, rightfully furious, snaps out, “You’re a sick, sad, twisted old man and I hope you die alone.” This is known to be one of Pierce’s greatest fears - that he will die alone, unloved, with no one to mourn him, and that it will be his own fault. Abed returns with the pizza, oblivious to the group’s collective unhappiness.

Timeline ends. While this timeline doesn’t reveal much about the characters, it does lend some insight into Pierce, as well as Jeff and Annie’s relationship. Pierce is capable of feeling regret and guilt, which hasn’t been very prevalent over the past few seasons, and this shows that he does know when he’s done the wrong thing and even that he sometimes tries to remedy his mistakes. This potential for character growth has been shown by Pierce many times, though unfortunately none have been substantially explored throughout the course of the show.

The scene with Jeff and Annie demonstrates that they are not romantically compatible, as Jeff reminds Annie more of a father figure than a romantic interest.

The final timeline is the real, canon one, known as the Prime Timeline. In this timeline, Abed catches the dice before Jeff can roll it. He explains that “chaos already dominates enough of our lives”, and that as long as everyone remains accepting of one another’s virtues and flaws, they will be okay. He then reveals that Jeff, in the beginning, had devised a system by which he never has to be the one to fetch the pizza, through using a six-sided die when there are seven people.

As a consequence for trying to exempt himself from responsibility, the group makes Jeff get the pizza. In this timeline, Britta is allowed to sing “Roxanne” to her heart’s content; Shirley, delighted by the impromptu karaoke, lets her pies burn so she can sing and dance with everyone else. Annie tells Troy and Abed she loves their apartment, and Abed offers for her to move in with them. Pierce doesn’t make the Eartha Kitt comment, and, upon seeing how happy everyone is, changes his mind and chooses to throw the housewarming gift in the trash.

Jeff returns with the pizza, makes the obligatory aloof remark, “You guys see what happens when I leave you alone?” and settles in off to the side to watch his friends dance, the slight fond smile on his face subtly revealing his true feelings.

As explained by writer and showrunner Dan Harmon, this isn’t meant to imply that the group would be better off without Jeff, or that he’s the one holding the others back from being their truest, most authentic ridiculous selves. On the contrary, the implication of the Prime Timeline being the one where Jeff leaves means one thing: that sometimes, they need a leader - someone to hold the group together, to mediate conflict, and to provide a source of guidance and insight in difficult times - and sometimes, they just need their leader to step back, and allow them to simply be authentic and silly without shame.

The lesson of “Remedial Chaos Theory” is that everyone is made unhappy in some capacity with the absence of one of their own; the group is at their best when everyone is together, and decisions are made with fairness, lightheartedness, and a lack of hard feelings or malice.

This can also be thought of as the thesis of Community as a whole. True family is the family you choose, over and over again, because and despite of who they are. No one is really upset with Jeff for attempting to cheat; they know the kind of person he is and expect this sort of thing from him, so their reactions are simply amusement and light jokes at his expense. Likewise, Jeff knows who his friends are; though he may be embarrassed by them sometimes, he doesn’t stop them from having fun and indulging in their less serious natures once they’ve started.

He just smiles, and steps back to watch.

**Author's Note:**

> this is likely wildly repetitive and redundant but oh well i had fun writing it
> 
> anyways! might as well put this here to dip my toes in publishing community fics, i have a jeff/britta roadtrip post s6 fic in progress as well as an american gothic/superpowers fic underway as well. let's see if i can pull myself together and finish them


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